After many conversations with Bid and Tender Managers from different industries and regions, a few remarkable things stand out. There is a lot of pressure in the world of tendering at the moment. Given the current situation, you would think that a decline would be obvious, but nothing is further from the truth. Tender managers have their hands full with guiding, writing and submitting their tenders, and this is all done with massive time pressure.
In the hectic period of responding to tenders, most tender managers experience a number of problems we often hear about. First of all, it remains a time-consuming job with many manual and repetitive tasks. Doing the same thing over and over again does not allow knowledge workers to excel and enables them to be creative again and use their expertise & knowledge to the fullest. In addition, it takes a lot of time to come to a bid / no bid decision. Especially in larger organisations, many different interests are involved, which slows down the process. At Brainial we believe it can help to look at a tender objectively and let us assist you with data-driven insights.
Tendering is purely done by humans, so it is possible that risks and other important elements are overlooked, with all the associated consequences. The fact that the work is done by people is extremely noticeable when there is a pile of documents given to us. And even if you work with a clear folder structure, it remains difficult to find specific (historical) tender information. The ´ctrl + f´ button is your best friend while searching, but not everyone finds this to be as effective. Brainial thinks that this can be done much smarter given the current technological possibilities. For example, it is possible to search in context throughout all documents at once for synonyms of well-known themes such as sustainability or circularity.
Many tender managers will recognise that it takes a lot of time to find out what is relevant to the contracting authority. It takes a lot of desk research on Google before you have a complete picture of the contracting authority in question. Take the two previously mentioned themes of sustainability and circularity, both of which could say a lot about what the focus of your tender response should be. Now you might find this out by manually going through vision documents and annual plans on the internet, but what if it could be done automatically?
Tendering is a one-time exercise with little to no learning effect, as we have found out recently. After discovering these challenges, Brainial is convinced that these problems can be solved in a smarter way. From the automatic generation of reading lists and bid sheets to the generation of organisation-specific points of interest, it can be done. There is a need for an innovative digital process that enables easy collaboration and secures knowledge.
In the discussions with tender managers, it often comes up that retaining the team is an important aspect. They fear the resignation of direct colleagues and the loss of their knowledge and experience from the organisation. Brainial ensures that part of the knowledge is captured in models. In this way, part of the knowledge is secured, and new employees can be onboarded more quickly.
The aforementioned issues that tender managers face have been the foundation for Brainial. Do you want to know more or do you have other problems? Please contact us.
